“He didn’t speak of her—he only told me about somebody who must have been like her,” said Nettie Harding, who considered it advisable not to answer the question. “The Pallisers are evidently big people here. Is Walthew a usual name in the family? Miss Wayne seemed to know a good deal about them.”
The other girl laughed. “I believe there were several Walthews, and Violet is, perhaps, proud of the connection,” she said. “They are an old family, and she is going to marry one of them.”
[XVII — TONY IS PAINFULLY ASTONISHED]
THE cool shadows were creeping across the velvet grass next afternoon when Nettie Harding lay languidly content in a canvas chair on the Low Wood lawn. Behind her rose a long, low, red-roofed dwelling, whose gray walls showed only here and there through their green mantle of creeper, but in front, beyond the moss-covered terrace wall, wheatfield, coppice, and meadow flooded with golden sunlight melted through gradations of color into the blue distance. It was very hot, and the musical tinkle of a mower that rose from the valley emphasized the drowsy stillness. Opposite her, on the other side of the little table whereon stood dainty china and brass kettle, sat her hostess’s daughter, Hester Earle, and she smiled a little as she glanced at Nettie.
“You are evidently not pining for New York!” she said.
Nettie Harding laughed as she looked about her with appreciative eyes. “This is quite good enough for me, and we don’t live in New York,” she said. “Nobody who can help it does, and it’s quite a question how to take out of it the men who have to work there. Our place is on the Hudson, and it’s beautiful, though I admit it is different from this. We haven’t had the time to smooth down everything and round the corners off in our country, though when we are as old as you are we’ll have considerably more to show the world.”
Hester Earle nodded tranquilly. She was typically English, and occasionally amused at Nettie, with whom she had made friends in London. Her father was chairman of a financial corporation that dealt in American securities, and having had business with Cyrus Harding, thought it advisable to show his daughter what attention he could.
“You were enthusiastic over Northrop church and the Palliser memorials yesterday,” she said.
“Yes,” said Nettie, “I was, but I should like to see the kind of men to whom they put them up. From what you said there are still some of them living in this part of your country?”
“There is one at Northrop just now, and it is rather more than likely that you will see him this afternoon if he suspects that Violet Wayne is coming here. I think I hear her now.”